“The hegemonic rise of China is raising questions about regional order”. 

Introduction

The debate centred on four questions.  Would Japan and the US go to war over Taiwan if Beijing use force to impose One China? What, if anything, should and can Europe do? Would a PLA invasion of Taiwan work? 

 Core messages:

·       The One China policy has become the One Xi policy. Any change is only likely to come when Xi is removed from power. Xi’s ambitions extend beyond Taiwan as the Chinese Communist Party seeks to extend its fiat to all states around the South and East China Seas.  

·       The extra-Taiwanese dimension to President Xi’s ambitions also makes it impossible to separate any regional conflict with global tensions as “the US is always present”. 

·       China would need to pay a significant price if it invaded Taiwan but at the same time Taipei must never be permitted to pursue outright independence.

·       For all China’s sabre-rattling Beijing’s primary aim remains reunification without conflict.   

Would Japan and the US go to war over Taiwan if Beijing use force to impose One China?

The consensus was that neither the US nor Japan would go to war with the China over Taiwan. The US Taiwan Relations Act is at best ambivalent on the question.  “Japan is the critical factor” because China is seen by Tokyo as “the great enemy”, although the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is also a major threat. The grounds for conflict are manifold. The Chinese still have fresh memories of Japanese maltreatment.  The Chinese Communist Party “is a continuation of the imperial model”. However, Xi, who “is increasingly out of touch with reality” also seems to want to create the Chinese version of the Monroe Doctrine in East Asia. In parallel, there is a new defence identity being forged in Japan driven by the growth in the PLA.  Tokyo has also suggested that a military seizure of Taiwan by China would pose an existential threat to Japan.  Japan’s challenge is its demographic decline and the need to contend with both China and.

Does Taiwan deserve to be defended?

China-Taiwan tensions must be seen as a civil war rather than an inter-state war.  The sobering experience of Hong Kong because of China’s ending of limited autonomy is a stark warning of Taiwan’s future under the CCP.  President Xi sees reunification “as the fulfilment of a promise in what is for him a personal mission. is also split between a KMT party that seeks closer relations with China and the DPP that toys with full independence. Any invasion by the PLA would be risky despite the massive increase in air-maritime-amphibious capabilities of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) because China has no experience of high intensity warfare.  For Europeans this is a dilemma because Taiwan is much more liberal than China controlled by the CCP. 

What, if anything, should and can Europe do?

Whilst Europe is and would be by and large irrelevant in any major crisis in East Asia. However, such crises would also demonstrate the extent to which Europeans are willing to defend the principles in international relations “which they pretend to defend”, or whether mercantilism wins out. In any case, “Europe needs to defend itself first”.

Would a PLA invasion of Taiwan work? 

Only at very considerable risk to the invasion force.  However, there is a regional shift underway in favour of Chinese conventional and nuclear military power that must not be under-estimated.  Given how hard it would be for the US or any other power to come to Taiwan’s aid, credible deterrence by denial would be needed. There is little evidence Taiwan could mount such a deterrent, or the US really wants to.  “The more the US becomes transactional the more likely China will conclude the US does not want to defend Taiwan”.  

Course of Action

The diplomatic aim of the US and other democracies should be the preservation of the status quo as long as possible.  The diplomatic aim should be to convince China that the status quo is in Beijing’s interest.

There is one final question which remains unanswered – why do the democracies support One China?   

Julian Lindley-French